officials tell me they are beginning to put out. it was put out there because it's technically possible. it could still prove to be true. but this is going over countries with significant military capability, military radars, commercial air traffic control radars, and a lot of this ability on what is happening in their air space. you are talking about china, india, thailand, pakistan, myanmar. these are countries that know what's going on in their air space. nobody has reported a crash and if it had crashed, they would have reported it. that is an absolute given in the world aviation community. so they are beginning to rule that concept out given the data they have. that's the southern india ocean. >> barbara has been doing great reporting. andy, you reported that

officials were looking into the possibility that the plane may have landed somewhere. given all of these developments, do you still think that's a possibility? >> i think it is a possibility. you cannot rule it out. but i would say from the beginning it has not been the major strand of this investigation. i would say it's looking increasingly less likely and particularly, if it happens, if there was a landing or attempted landing, finding the wreckage in those mountains with snow will be almost impossible. but i think investigators are increasingly looking at the scenario that the plane did not make land, that somehow it went into the water either because of lost fuel or for some other reason. it ran out of fuel or some other reason at this point, we really don't know. >> andy, jim, barbara, appreciate all of you. thank you. stand by. more on our breaking news into the disappearance of flight 370 as the investigation centers on what happened inside that cockpit. the latest theories. was it terrorism?

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tonight, we are continuing our breaking news coverage of the disappearance of malaysia air flight 370. u.s. officials now telling cnn that the u.s. intelligence community is leaning toward a theory that those in the cockpit, the pilots of that malaysia airlines flight, were deliberately responsible for whatever happened to that vanished aircraft. given this new development, many are drawing parallels between the missing flight and silk air flight 185 that crashed back in 1997. the flight heading from indonesia to singapore suddenly dove vertically into a river, killing everyone on board. the national transportation safety board concluded the pilot committed suicide. kyung lah with the story. >> reporter: december 1997. the mysterious plane crash of silk air flight 185. the boeing 737 with 104 people aboard suddenly nose-dived into

this murky river. the entire drop happened in about one minute, breaking the speed of sound. nearly all the bodies were torn to pieces. add tog the grief of the families, the national transportation safety board would conclude all this was the act of one man, a pilot who wanted to commit suicide. >> it ended up crashing here in the river. >> reporter: thomas anthony remembers silk air 185 clearly, because he was with the faa civil aviation security division and was part of the silk air investigation. a pilot intentionally downing a passenger plane is still hard for him to think about. how horrifying is that? as someone who is investigating this? >> it's something that most of us should never consider, because it is so extremely rare, it is beyond -- almost beyond imagination. >> reporter: still disputed, anthony points out. indonesian investigators say the cause remains inconclusive. in a civil trial, a los angeles jury decided the crash was

caused by a failed part of the plane's rudder. the victim's families never got a clear answer. just like another crash, egypt air flight 990. the ntsb ruled the pilot intentionally caused the 1999 crash. egyptian authorities say it was caused by mechanical failure. >> it's like a jigsaw puzzle. a jigsaw puzzle in which there are thousands of pieces and not all those pieces are at the bottom of the ocean. >> reporter: could someone in the cockpit have done something to malaysia airlines flight 370? these two young women say the co-pilot of the missing plane invited them to ride in the cockpit on a previous flight and did. retired american airlines pilot mark weiss believes based on prior history, someone, perhaps someone with the crew, intentionally caused this plane to vanish. >> whether it was one of the pilots that maybe had a meltdown or wanted to do something

nefarious to the airplane or an invited visitor or perhaps an uninvited visitor or another crew member that was bent on perhaps committing suicide or doing some destruction on the aircraft. >> reporter: there is an intense focus on the wreckage because many of the answers lie there, but not all of them. in the case of silk air, about 75% of the wreckage was reassembled, was pulled out, yet three different entities, the civil court here in los angeles, u.s. authorities and indonesian authorities all came up with different reasons for why this plane crashed. they were all looking, though, at the exact same piece of evidence. kyung lah, cnn, los angeles. >> thank you very much. very interesting report. cnn aviation analyst tim tillman joins me now, retired american airlines pilot and president of the tillman group, and also my former meteorologist in chicago. he knows everything, weather conditions and all about aviation as well. such a pleasure to have you working with us. you heard the piece there. given the new developments

tonight, do you think this could have been a pilot suicide like silk air? >> i'm very puzzled by a lot of the things we have been discovering. but look at this, don. if the pilot was bent on suicide, why would he do all this flying in order to get there? he could have done that immediately, right after takeoff. why would he fly for all those hours? was he trying to make up his mind? my goodness. i think more likely, this may have been something where there was a plan to take the airplane some place and land it, then as the time went on and one approach and another approach failed, they realized this is not working, then of course, the pilot or whoever was in charge, may have recognized i'm not going to get away with this, then stuck it in the water. >> let's talk about the new information that we have. are you surprised that it took malaysia officials so long to search these pilots' homes, that they needed to go over all this

data, and we need something sufficient. a missing airplane, isn't that enough? >> yeah, that's more than enough. i don't know what to blame that on. i don't know if it's a cultural thing or what it is. but it doesn't make any kind of sense to wait this long to find out what's in that house, because there may be some very important clues there on that flight simulator. >> let's talk about some of the reports that have been out there. we told you about an abc news report that says it appears it was preprogrammed. this nbc news report is that a simulator was taken from the pilot's house during the search. how important will this be for their investigation? are they looking at the possibility that this pilot may have been doing some sort of training for nefarious reasons, do you think? >> i think that's one of the things that has been crossing my mind, that with that sophisticated simulator that he had, he could really practice all these things that have been going on all this time, the zigs, the zags, pulling the circuit breaker there, all that sort of thing. when we talk about a deliberate

act, i think this was very deliberate. i think that whoever was in charge, whether there was a third person who entered the cockpit or the pilot himself, this is not an accident. there is no accidental movement of this airplane all over the sky out there. that's why i'm saying if he did all that and had a plan, and the plan fell through, that would be very, very dangerous because then he could become very unstable and who knows what he would have done. >> stand by. lots to go over as we continue here. more of our breaking news into the disappearance of flight 370. the latest in the investigation as the officials focus on what happened inside the cockpit. was it a rogue pilot? plus, the conspiracy theories. is it possible the plane landed somewhere and is intact? [ male announcer ] at his current pace, bob will retire when he's 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. but he's not. ♪ he's an architect with two kids and a mortgage.

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breaking news here on cnn. i would like to welcome our viewers of course here in the united states and around the world. this is our special coverage of missing malaysian airlines flight 370. tonight, u.s. officials tell cnn that the u.s. intelligence community is leaning towards a theory that quote, those in the cockpit, the pilots of the malaysia airlines flight, were deliberately responsible for whatever happened to the missing aircraft. and now, the malaysian government has finally searched the homes of the pilot and co-pilot, finally, seven days in. or nine days in, i should say. joining me now, cnn's richard quest. at least we got the video and word of it today. don't know exactly when they did that search. do you see any of today's developments, the searching of the homes, at least we know now, also that it appears everything

to be deliberate and coming from the cockpit. what do you make of these developments? >> by far and away, the most important development was the prime minister's statement this morning, when he basically laid out the timeline and crucially said that the ntsb, the aaib, the british equivalent and the faa, all concurred with this idea that the plane had turned and had followed one of the two paths, up towards kazahkstan or down into the indian ocean. the prime minister moved this entire incident into a different phase. >> the prime minister talking about -- i guess the possibilities now with the prime minister, the prime minister talking about that it looks like it was deliberately done. so that changes the realm of possibilities as to where this plane could have gone. talk about that. >> for those of us who are saying let's wait for the

information, today, we got that information. today we got the nod -- >> what's going on? you can stand up. the lighting is good. we can do that. >> make sure i don't fall apart. right. now, so we have got these two tracks that are now being moved up. one of them comes up this way. now, if you follow it to its logical conclusion, you will see it coming up into china, out towards the region and then kazakhstan, and that's one of the routes that they believe are relevant. >> significant? >> significant because look at the countries and all the various issues, political issues, geopolitical issues, strategic issues, that would be down to the uighurs we have talked about earlier, all relevant in this part of the world. that's one of the paths they're looking at. the other path of course is the southern path and that goes out towards the south indian ocean. >> do we have that path? if we can find it now. go ahead. >> that one of course becomes --

okay. there's the first one we just looked at. bear in mind, if this is the one that will be chosen, this is the one that finally turns out to be, enormous number of questions, not least all these countries and their various radar -- >> pakistan, afghanistan. >> india, all the radar network, why wasn't anything heard from any of them, why weren't any planes scrambled. this one, however, coming out to the south into the indian ocean raises a whole set of different questions, not least of which you've got the western coast of australia, quite a long way off. but this one raises the very real question of how on earth you search this amount of water. we know there have been probably six pings. we know there have been almost six signals. you talk about one, two, three, four, five, six, a deep channel but you're still looking into an area that's fairly large along these parameters. >> thank you. stand by, richard quest. we will have much, much more on

this breaking news into the disappearance of flight 370. next, the last words heard from the cockpit, all right, good night. why the timing of those words has become so important in this investigation. and as officials focus on what happened inside the cockpit, what is the likelihood, what is the likelihood that this was terrorism? so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 a month? yup. all 5 of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share.

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i'm don lemon.

breaking news tonight in the disappearance of malaysia airlines flight 370. a u.s. official tells cnn the intelligence community has increased its focus on those in the cockpit. we also know the last communication from the cockpit, someone saying all right, good night, came after some of the plane's systems had been shut down. all of that leading investigators to take a closer look at the pilot and co-pilot. today, searching both their homes. cnn's renee marsh has a complete timeline of what we know so far. >> reporter: takeoff from kuala lumpur, 12:41 a.m. local time last saturday. flight 370 headed north along its planned route to beijing. but then, two communications systems stopped working within minutes of each other, and investigators now believe someone almost surely turned them off. at 1:07 a.m. near the east coast of malaysia, the system known as

acars stops transmitting information about the plane's operating condition. and that was before the last radio transmission, all right, good night, indicating everything was normal. 1:21 a.m., the transponder which identifies the aircraft on radar, stops transmitting. was someone trying to hide the plane? we also now know blips then seen on malaysian military radar were in fact flight 370 headed west and authorities say there is every indication someone was in control. >> until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, this movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane. >> reporter: still unclear whether it was a pilot or hijacker. cnn has confirmed the plane made

erratic changes in altitude and was flying what officials describe as a strange path. at one point, it appears to have climbed to 45,000 feet, well above its approved altitude, then descending to 23,000. now, a new analysis of satellite information shows the plane kept flying more than seven hours after takeoff, much longer than previously thought. a satellite searching for operational data from the plane detected the aircraft every hour in a so-called handshake. but no data was transmitted. its last contact, 8:11 a.m., somewhere along this arc that stretches as far north as kazakhstan and as far south as the indian ocean, west of australia. as you can see, search crews have a general area but still haven't pin-pointed its exact location. after more than eight hours in the air, it would have been close to running out of fuel.

one other thing, we haven't talked a lot about this but there is the possibility, we won't get all of the answers that we are looking for in this mystery. the cockpit voice recorders, again, that is located in the rear area of the tail, in the rear area of the plane here, we know that it is only required to record the last two hours of the flight so if the plane flew for hours, we may never know what happened at the very beginning. we do know, though, that the cockpit data recorder, they store information on the aircraft's systems, the entire systems here, so that may be captured. of course, it will be because it records an entire flight, about 36 hours. one other thing, a lot of people have asked this question, why didn't passengers text or call home. we do know that on this particular plane, there was no equipment on board to allow cell service. >> very thorough report. thank you, rene marsh. appreciate that. u.s. intelligence community

increasingly turning their focus on those in the cockpit, the pilots being responsible for the missing jet. malaysian police today say they searched the pilots' home outside kuala lumpur. police were also seen leaving the home of the co-pilot carrying small shopping bags. david mckenzie live in beijing, where the flight was scheduled to land last week. david, are tensions growing between china and the malaysian government because of this? >> reporter: well, they definitely are growing, those tensions. there has been a whole lot of mudslinging between the two sides. earlier this week, certainly from the malaysian side, they criticized the chinese for giving out mistaken information and now, the chinese are saying that they need to step up their efforts on the search. one state media editorial which is really a mouthpiece of the government here, saying massive efforts have been squandered and numerous rumors have been spawned repeatedly wracking the nerves of the awaiting families. so certainly from the chinese

side, they are pointing the finger at the malaysians. the malaysian acting transport minister just spoke to chinese media. he said if it takes two years or 20 years, he gives the assurance to the families stuck here in beijing of those passengers that they will find this plane. don? >> imagine in all of this, the families, hanging on every word from the media, from officials, anything they can get. what are you hearing from the families of those who were on the jet as they await some answers here? >> reporter: we are hearing this frustration, this anger, a variety of emotions over the past few days and certainly now it's more than a week since this plane vanished when it was due to land here in beijing. that whole gamut of emotions we have seen at that hotel. right now, it seems really that the family members want answers. like the rest of us. but for us, what is amazing mystery and intriguing for them has very real consequences, of

course, because these are their loved ones. the majority of those on board were chinese, more than 150 of them. they are mostly stuck in a hotel here in beijing. it seems ironic in a way when that news came out from malaysia that this might be a deliberate act, potentially even a hijacking, though that is looking unclear at this point. the families saw that as positive news, not as negative. take a listen. >> i hope this is a hijacking, because they are our loved ones. i hope that they are alive no matter how small the chance is. i haven't slept for days. we are grateful for the help from so many countries. >> reporter: and their families honestly, what they are really telling me like all of us is what they need now is any kind of answer. don? >> david, thank you very much. u.s. intelligence officials, they believe the pilots were deliberately responsible for the

missing jet, but could terror have been the motivation here? bob behr is a cnn national security analyst and former cia operative. so could it be terror? if it was the pilots, right, they knew how to make this jet disappear. is this knowledge of an airplane too advanced for what a terror group would know? >> oh, i think absolutely that some professional pilot was involved in this, turning off the systems, changing course, taking it to a high altitude, flying in air corridors, evading radar, all the rest of it, flying seven hours. doesn't sound like your average terrorist. this wasn't the 9/11 terrorists. whether it was the actual pilots or not, i can't tell you. but i find it interesting that they went for seven hours and if it were a simple pilot committing suicide which has happened in the past, wouldn't he take it into the ocean. so he had some motive to take this plane somewhere and that's

the big mystery. i think as they go through his house, if it indeed is this malaysian pilot or co-pilot as well, they will find connections that will be of high interest to u.s. intelligence. >> let's talk about the two paths. there's a northern path and southern path that they are looking into. the northern flight path, it takes a plane to western china and the uighur region, an area that has had issues with china. could the plane conceivably have been flown into this area without being detected? >> i think so. i have been in those radar sites. they have fallen apart. there's not much there. u.s. radar hoped to pick something up but the locals wouldn't necessarily see it. kazakhstan's not much better. there are fields in kazakhstan where you could land conceivably, abandoned military fields, put it in a warehouse. but that's so fantastic. i would find it difficult to arrive at that conclusion. but you can't rule it out. >> yeah.

so how significant, though, would it be if a group from the uighurs, like the uighurs, took control of this airplane? >> well, don, they would go outside. they would find a pilot or recruit the malay pilot in this case. i don't think they could do it on their own. i'm not aware of their interest in aviation. but they have a lot of sympathy. the chinese are oppressing the chinese muslims. they are knocking down a city. they would have a motivation to do this, not necessarily -- i'm not saying they did but they would have the motivation to hijack a plane full of chinese. >> bob baer, appreciate you. see you soon here on cnn. more of our breaking news coverage into the disappearance of flight 370 as investigators center on what happened inside the cockpit. next, the conspiracy theories. was it a rogue pilot? or a hijacker? [ male announcer ] we all think about life insurance. but when we start worrying about tomorrow,

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i'm don lemon. back now with our breaking news coverage. i want to welcome our viewers around the world as well as here in the united states. we are talking about that missing malaysian airliner that disappeared nine days ago.

officials tell cnn that u.s. intelligence is increasingly focused on those in the cockpit, the pilots of flight 370, as being deliberately responsible for the missing passenger jet, the boeing 777 vanished with 239 people on board. but we still don't know where it is. arthur rosenberg is back with us, an aviation engineer and attorney. eddie von force is a security expert and jeff wise is the author of "extreme fear." you guys have been watching the coverage and watching the developments. i see you paying close attention. what stands out for you just within the last couple hours from this new reporting? >> i want to know what's going on with the pilots. i want to know what the malaysians know. did they go in, did they do an assessment, did they interview, what's the communication, what's the forensic profile of these two pilots that everybody now is focused on. i think that's the big issue. that's information we should have had again early on in the game, which is disturbing with

this investigation. the route it's taking. it shouldn't take this long to get this plane. we should have been there day one. >> jeff? >> you know, it's hard to not keep coming back to this idea of these two arcs, these two physical locations on the planet where this plane was at 8:10 that fateful morning. so the prime minister of malaysia came out and made the point this is good data, the malaysians have been working through it over the course of multiple days with americans. this seems to be the one really solid thing we can hang our hat on right now. >> you said something very significant last time i spoke with you here, just within the last hour. you said this changes the game, especially when it comes to terrorism, and it almost you said 9/11 type way? >> well, i said if you look at where this is going, there is still a lot we don't know. the consensus seems to be forming around the idea that the pilots took control of the airplane. now, that's not nailed down by any stretch of the imagination. but if that is the case, if we can no longer trust the pilots of the airplanes, there really

is no one we trust anymore. that will change the psychology of how we approach air travel. you know, as i said before, this is definitely not an accident. you don't fly for eight hours and travel thousands of miles by accident, especially if you follow this kind of zigzag path that the pilot clearly did. this was a carefully planned, meticulously executed, ambitious, creative, and i talked about game changing. one of the things that really changed the psychology of the whole world after 9/11 was that before that, we had never conceived of the possibility that hijackers could take a plane and be willing to die in it. that had never happened before. i think the reason this week has been so baffling for us is that we have never before had to wrap our heads around the idea that maybe we can't trust our pilots. maybe someone can try to steal a plane out from under the eyes of the entire global air traffic control system. >> people are actually taking control of the plane, the pilots, they're locked in there

and no one can get to them. what stands out to you? >> the thing that stands out with me is that this was a well-conceived and executed plan -- >> if it continues to go in the direction that it is, right? >> well, even before you get to that. i think from the moment that this plane left the runway at kuala lumpur, they had an agenda. they executed that agenda, including flying out towards the end of the island until we get to that fork in the road, the northern route or the southern route. what stands out with me is why would you want to go south. the indian ocean is a black hole. there's nothing out there. you head north. we know now through some of the great coverage on cnn that the radar in central asia is less than optimum in many places. so was it, that's a mystery that

remains to be seen. this plan seems to me to be a plan that was intended to head on the northern route. >> stand by. i want to get you. you also think because of what bob said that the radar, as he said they're old, outdated. there are flaws. you find that interesting. >> i was astonished, in reuters today, indeed many of the countries don't feel particularly military threat. india, for instance, apparently according to reuters operates their military radar on an as-needed basis. meaning if someone feels maybe there's some potential threat, then they're turn it on. but on a day-to-day basis, why spend the money? and so, so there's been a lot of concern. a lot of people are saying it has to be the southern track because there's too much military on the northern track. point i'd like to make, this plane got through malaysian military radar without a hitch. only when they went back and looked at the recorded data after the fact they realized

this track existed. >> do you feel, listening to everything you say that the malaysian government is withholding information here? >> yes, i think from the beginning they were not -- i think in the beginning they were not being forthcoming. to me, that's logical. you want to deflect blame, don't want it to come on. you're dealing with all the countries and don't want to share intelligence. i want to point something out, the game changer, not trusting your pilots, not trusting people. i have to say this, i was a criminal investigators. i did polygraphs, i did interrogations on people. the one thing i learned is that anybody is capable of anything at any given moment in time. should certain things play out. i don't trust anybody. pilot or not. and maybe i'm cynical due to the job that i had. but i think that is irrelevant because it's the human component, being inside. that's what matters. be a pilot, a cop, whatever. a doctor. the title has nothing to do with it. >> right. stand by. hold that thought. we have much more.

you guys are going to be here with us throughout the evening. we're on the air until 10:00 p.m. eastern in the united states. continuing breaking news coverage intoes the disappearance of flight 370. investigators center on what happened inside the cockpit. how familiar would you have to be with a boeing 777 to disable it? more with our panel next. so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 a month? yup. all 5 of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day.

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i'm don lemon. welcome back to our news, our viewers in the united states and around the world. we're live tonight with the latest on the breaking news on the disappearance of malaysia air flight 370. we've been telling you about this news that the u.s. intelligence community is increasingly focused on this being a deliberate act from inside the cockpit. was it an act of terror or a suicide mission? want to get back to our panel of experts now. arthur rosenberg, aviation engineer and attorney. evi is a security and threat assessment expert, and jeff wise is the author of "extreme fear." so, thank you, guys, for joining us. abc is reporting about this abrupt left turning. they're saying that it has to be preprogrammed, right? the malaysian military radar showed that the plane was brought up to 45,000 feet and then dropped to 23,000 feet. could this be a tactical maneuver to avoid being detected? >> we have to look at that data with a grain of salt.

throughout this week we've seen all kinds of information come through. some of it is always falling out. from what i've heard, 45,000 feet is a very difficult altitude for this plane to achieve. >> have to really push it then it would possibly break apart. it might be beyond its maximum altitude. depends on conditions, weight, et cetera. even "the new york times" report where i first saw this indicated that the descent was physically impossible. we know some of this report is erroneous. it may be that the entire thing is erroneous. >> yeah. i would just put -- i agree with that. i would put another angle on it that the farther you get away from the source of radar, the less accurate the altitude deviations are recorded by the radar. so while the radar is attributed to having the plane at 45,000 feet, i heard loss of altitude, 40,000 feet at the moment, which is physically impossible for the airplane. i'd attribute it to the

inaccuracies of the radar that was monitoring that airplane. that being said, there may very well have been altitude excursions up and down gains and losses of altitude for a whole host of reasons. so i don't think you can discount the fact that the plane gained and lost altitude, but i think you can discount the amount or extent of the altit e altitude -- >> that said, remember the incident where the plane was flying around because of decompression. there are theories out there that whoever was flying or what have you, someone commandeered the aircraft, could have been inexperienced and had that situation where people on board were not conscious. >> one question people have been asking throughout this week, say you abscond with this. what to you do with the passengers? you have 230,000-something people on there. many are carrying cell phones. how to you deal with them?

do you somehow depressurize the cockpit and let them go unconscious for hypoxia? that is pure speculation at this point. at this point, we know where the plane was at certain times and have to build everything from that. >> let's talk about the timeline here. about when the akars system was turned off, when the transponder was turned off. just before vietnamese airspace. and then when it turns and then say after all of these incidents had occurred, that's when it's all right, good night. >> yes. well, to me, it seems very clear, again, i don't know if it's the investigative thing or component of my background. with all these red flags, from the beginning, it's very nefarious and the way it's kind of laid out. it just seems extremely calcula calculated. some involvement there as far as people being put out or passed out or the pressure and all that. i don't -- i'm not -- i can't really say on that aspect or

not, but i do feel that there is significant calculation here, that this was deliberate, that it was very likely these pilots considering some of the things that are coming out, especially with the one pilot having certain capabilities, having that simulation system at his house. that's odd behavior. >> yeah. >> that's not normal. that's a red flag. >> so what about this whole northern track now that we've been talking about? then seven hours, you know, longer than we had thought. arthur? >> so, you have an airplane that got to the fork in the road. the radar, the satellite which was out there basically pinging airplanes not for location, but to ask, are you out there? they got a ping back from this airplane saying, yes, i'm here, but because of the nature of the satellite, it's pointed at one point over the earth, it's called geosynchronous. you wouldn't know where that plane is.

so you have a plane that made a right turn which was deliberate. i think is representative of an intended flight route by at least one skilled pilot. >> much, much more to talk about here on cnn. more of our breaking news coverage right now. good evening, everyone. i'm don lemon. breaking news tonight in the disappearance of malaysia airlines flight 370. malaysia's defense minister saying moments ago there has been no cover-up in the investigation. a very defensive official tonight saying the malaysian government has put aside national security to share information with other countries involved in the hunt. cnn's jim clancy in kuala lumpur joining us with the very latest. jim, what's going on here? >> reporter: well, you know, the defense minister, the prime minister and others have said that very line. we have put this